All posts for the month May, 2011

[Warning: If you have yet to watch Thursday’s season finale of Bones, run — don’t walk — to the nearest emergency exit. Everyone else, onward and downward….]

Tonight’s Bones season finale solved two major mysteries that had been looming over the series in recent weeks: Yes, Booth (David Boreanaz) and Brennan (Emily Deschanel) did engage in comfort sex in last week’s episode. And yes, Deschanel’s real-life pregnancywill be incorporated into the show.

Plus, viewers got an answer to the biggest cliffhanger hanging over the entire series: After six years of will-they or won’t-they foreplay, Booth and Brennan are heading into next season as both a full-fledged couple and expectant parents. Put in TV business terms, the show’s producers not only blew off that pesky (and outdated) Moonlighting curse, but they kicked it in the groin. And we kind of love them for it.

That’s not to say, however, that we don’t still have questions. Because we do. Luckily, exec producer Stephen Nathan agreed to jump on the phone this evening for a quick post mortem and a preview of what’s to come.

TVLINE | First, please assure me that this isn’t going to be some kind of bait and switch. Brennan is really carrying Booth’s child, right?
It was not a dream. There is no alternate reality. What you see is what you get. They are having a baby. She is pregnant with his child. She [slept with] him in the previous episode and this was the outcome.

TVLINE | What impact did Emily’s pregnancy have on this story? Would you have gone this route regardless?
Emily being pregnant certainly figured into it to a certain extent. But [series creator] Hart [Hanson] and I were leaning toward this independently of that. The biggest problem we faced going into Season 7 was how to get these two people together while keeping the integrity of Brennan and Booth’s characters in tact. By going this route, we didn’t have to have them go through the traditional love-dovey stage where everything was wonderful and they understood each other and they got past their differences. That’s never going to be the case. They now are together but are essentially the same exact characters. They’re going to disagree on everything they disagreed about before, including how to approach their lives together, religion, family and now how to approach having a child. So we lose nothing but gain a huge amount with the reality that they are now together sharing the biggest thing in their lives.

TVLINE | So this isn’t just two co-workers having a baby together after a one-night stand. This is a full-fledged couple starting a family?
They are as much of a full-fledged couple as two unique and difficult people can be. Brennan is not a fan of marriage. Booth is somebody who’s always wanted to get married. These issues still remain. The tension that has existed in their relationship up to this point will continue. They’re now sharing something and they’re committed to each other in a way they always wanted and there’s no way to avoid that. They have to deal with the reality that they’ve gotten what they secretly wished for.

TVLINE | Will they move in together?
That will be addressed in Season 7. When we open in Season 7, it’s not Ozzie and Harriet. It’s not a perfect little domestic family situation. They haven’t figured out where they’re living, how they’re living and what their future is. They just know that they’re together.

TVLINE | How much time will have passed?
That’s something we’re still deciding. We will probably pick up a couple of months down the line.

TVLINE | This is a very unconventional path to take. I mean, these two haven’t been on a real date together and now they’re having a baby.
The reality is, Booth has been with Brennan more than he ever was with [a real girlfriend like] Hannah. Which is always the case when people work together in a high-pressure job. [By making Brennan pregnant] we avoid all of the [trappings] that people commonly associate with the Moonlighting curse, which is, “Oh, now they have to date,” or “Oh, now they have to hug each other and kiss and share desserts.” They never have to share dessert. [Laughs]

TVLINE | When you and Hart concocted this story, did you go to Emily and tell her that if she’s ever thinking of having a baby with husband David Hornsby now would be the time?
[Laughs] Not really. Because we still have the [prosthetic baby bump] that we used on Angela. We already bought that. We could easily re-use it.

TVLINE | How did Emily and David react when you told them this was the direction you were going in?
They were very, very happy. It allowed them to take a big step forward as actors with their characters. And it allows us to keep them precisely who they’ve been for the past six years, and yet move them forward without getting into the stuff where you kind of go, “Eww, now they like each other; there’s no point in watching the show.” Nobody really wants that happy domesticity. And I can’t foresee that ever happening with the two of them. Their feelings for each other are clear. Everybody’s known it for years, even though Booth and Brennan haven’t always copped to it.

TVLINE | Any concern about embarking on another season-long baby story on the heels of the Angela-Hodgins pregnancy plot?
We did have thoughts about that. But then we realized it can be an advantage, because this is really what happens to most people. Friends have a baby, and then they have a baby, and then you hear from the friends about how they raised the baby, then you want to kill those friends because now they’re know-it-alls. So the idea of them sharing the experience of having a baby could actually help the show, because they are not going to raise their children in the same way. And then we’ll also have other characters weighing in on it. We have Max around, who we think would probably be a very good nanny. [Laughs]

TVLINE | You pointed out that Brennan isn’t the marrying kind. Are you ruling out a Booth and Brennan wedding?
No. Not at all. That will be addressed and not resolved in the season premiere.

TVLINE | Did Fox freak out about this storyline?
As a matter of fact, no. They were fabulous. They were great. Everybody realized the [challenge] of getting them together. And we had to do it in a way that hadn’t been done before. And I do want to say that Bones is still going to be Bones. There are still going to be dead bodies and revolting remains. And [Booth and Brennan] are still going to be solving crimes. It’s not going to turn into a soap. They’re [personal] lives will be ongoing and we will focus on that, but we’re still a crime-odey.

Supernatural Boss on Finale: “Characters That People Like Will Be Killed”

Supernatural‘s war in Heaven is upon us as the series airs its two-part finale on Friday (8/7c on The CW), and showrunner Sera Gamble promises some deaths, Sam’s long-awaited breakdown and “a lot of Castiel” in both episodes.

Gamble wrote the night’s first episode, “Let It Bleed,” which introduces a new player — at least historically — into the series. Apparently, the late, real-life horror writer H.P. Lovecraft is somehow mixed up in the Winchesters’ battle to keep Purgatory at bay. Anyone familiar with his Chthulu mythos will recognize that his terrifying creations fit right in with the Supernatural world.

In the second episode, “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” we see the culmination of what’s going on with Castiel and his season-long quest to oppose Raphael.

Check out what Gamble has to say about Season 6’s finale event:

What can you tease about the episode you wrote, “Let It Bleed”?Sera Gamble: One of the big arcs we played this season for Dean, when we had first seen Dean (Jensen Ackles) this season, he had been retired for an entire year and was living with Lisa and Ben. He left them to resume hunting and be with Sam. While we’re glad he did that because we want to watch him on the show and this in many ways is clearly the right choice for everyone, I think there’s a part that he left behind with them. More to the point, just having been in their lives put them in danger. He has had this fear that something bad might happen to them. In Episode 21, basically long-story-short, that comes to pass. They are unexpectedly taken and he has to deal with that. He has to deal with the repercussions of having been in their lives. It’s basically Dean’s worst nightmare.

How does this part pair with the second half of the finale, “The Man Who Knew Too Much”?Gamble: We have so many mythologies going on that when we heard that we were going to air Episode 21 and 22 on the same night, we talked about breaking it as one huge, two-hour episode with a short cliff-hanger in the middle, but what ended up happening was two distinct episodes. Episode 21 deals with a lot of Dean stuff, and Episode 22 deals with a lot of Sam (Jared Padalecki) stuff. That’s just the way it worked out. Both guys are very active in both episodes. There’s a lot of Dean in Episode 22 and there’s a lot of Sam in Episode 21. And there’s a lot of Bobby (Jim Beaver), a lot of Castiel (Mischa Collins)in both. But it kind of ended up being Dean-heavy in 21 and Sam-heavy in 22.

What is the Sam-heavy episode going to deal with?Gamble: This season we structured it with a lot of mysteries and twists and turns, it’s kind of like this noir-style thing, so there’s like a couple of big bombshells. Here’s something definite I can say about Episode 22 that’s probably helpful. When Sam got his soul back, Death put this wall up in his mind. Behind the wall are all of his memories of hell, which are incredibly dangerous to him. We know that that wall could crack, and we know that that wall could break. We’ve been kind of threatening this all season. So Episode 22 deals with that, his amnesia, the wall breaking. We promised it all season.

What can we expect from Castiel now that he’s on his own without the Winchesters?Gamble: The war in heaven becomes a more urgent, heavy thing for Castiel. That will come to the fore at the end of the season. You’ll see Castiel and Raphael face off as well. We have a lot to juggle.

In an interview, director Robert Singer had hinted that “everyone is not what they appear.” What kind of surprises can we expect along those lines?Gamble: I think hopefully if we’ve done our job right, there will be a couple of gasps in the last few episodes. Not everyone is who they appear to be on the surface. But it’s not like anyone’s going to rip their face off and be somebody else underneath though. We’re really not that show. In certain ways we’ve always told those kinds of stories. We always have a thread of darkness and Sam and Dean worrying who they can trust. Their world has always been shaky in that way. We’ve derived a lot of interesting and kind of fun stories in a dark way because of that.

It wouldn’t be a Supernatural finale without some casualties … Gamble: We definitely kill people. Characters will be killed and transformed. It’s safe to say that characters that people like will be killed. I find that usually when we kill somebody there’s a certain amount of blowback because they’re always characters that people likes. I usually don’t get thank-you notes for the people that we kill. But we have that small group of characters that we go back to because they’re precious. The reason we go back to them again and again and again is because they were cool.

Is there a possibility of seeing John Winchester (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) in these last episodes? Gamble: You won’t see John Winchester in Season 6, I’m sorry;. There’s always a chance we’ll bring him back at some point in show. It’s a combination of the right story and Jeffrey Dean being available at that time because he’s a busy and popular actor, which we’re super-happy about for him.

Did CBS cancel The Mentalistand forget to tell us? The smash-hit crime drama just wrapped its third season with Patrick Jane (Simon Baker) shooting and killing serial slayer Red John (Bradley Whitford) in the crowded food court of a shopping mall. But wasn’t Jane’s vengeful pursuit of Red John his raison d’être and the very point of this series? How could the plot wrap up so soon? Then again, did Jane kill the real Red John? Whether he did or he didn’t, he’s in deep doo-doo. “Patrick has just murdered a man in cold blood in front of hundreds of people and next season he will be tried in court,” creator Bruno Heller tells us. “We won’t dodge any issues. Patrick won’t wake up and discover it was all a dream. There will be consequences.” TV Guide Magazine spoke with Baker to get his take on the daring cliffhanger and where his show is headed from here. Will that impish little devil Patrick Jane ever be able to charm us again?

TV Guide Magazine: Those who follow The Mentalist might well be shocked by what Jane has done, but they can’t claim to be surprised, right?
Baker: Exactly! My character has always said, very coldly and matter-of-factly, that he would kill Red John if he ever got the chance. That was always his modus. And he’s told that to Agent Lisbon [Robin Tunney] many times. Of course there will be repercussions, but Patrick clearly doesn’t give a damn about that.

TV Guide Magazine: How will this murder change him? Is this closure? Can he get on with his life now, even if that life is spent in prison?
Baker: I think he feels great about finally getting revenge. But you never know. This could be the false bottom to the suitcase. Maybe this isn’t the bottom.

TV Guide Magazine: Meaning what? That Jane killed the wrong man? He certainly thought he had the right guy once Red John described how Jane’s wife and daughter smelled at the time of their murders — the exact soaps and shampoos they used. But, theoretically, the real Red John could have passed that information to Bradley Whitford’s character, no?
Baker: There’s a lot to play around with. I think it was a brilliant choice to have the murder happen in such a public place. Bang! Bang! Bang! Then Jane’s totally calm. People are running around in a panic. Jane just sits down and has his cup of tea. It’s done. He’s finally done what he needed to do. After this season, you’re going to have the lead character on a network TV series being a cold-blooded, vengeance-killing murderer. That’s heavy.

TV Guide Magazine: He certainly can’t claim to have killed in self defense.
Baker: And how do you get around that? There are too many witnesses who saw him go after Red John. I had some issues with the way the killing was originally written, which had Red John getting up and walking away and my character shooting him in the back three times. That wouldn’t have been fulfilling enough for Jane. The whole idea of vengeance is the fulfillment factor! Patrick had already said in a really powerful scene in Season 1, “When I find him I’m going to cut him open and watch him die.” A big part of the show — and the fan speculation — has always been whether or not Patrick really has what it takes to carry out that threat. Does he actually have it in him?So we played around with the scene. My idea was that Red John talks about how the wife and child smelled and it just cripples Jane. You see him go from this guy who’s this close to having his vengeance, having his closure, and he just crumbles into a bit of a paralyzed mess. Then Red John walks away. Jane says, “Please, wait.” Almost like he needs to hear more detail. I’ve always played the murders as still being so raw, so present, despite Jane’s bravado. I like the perverseness of him needing to hear more, as macabre as it is. So Jane goes up to him and looks like he’s shattered, then when he gets this close to Red John, the need for cold revenge kicks in. And he’s thinking, “Not only am I going to kill you, I am going to mind f–k you at the same time.” I wanted the audience to still think in that moment that, despite all Jane’s talk, he just can’t kill Red John. But then he does! It’s very operatic. Bruno loved the idea.

TV Guide Magazine: You two seem to have a remarkably close, almost symbiotic relationship. A lot of exec producers in town would freak if an actor wanted this level of creative involvement.
Baker: Believe me, I know! [Laughs]I get such profound satisfaction working with Bruno, because he understands me and I understand him. It’s really pure luck we found each other. It’s very rare. I can be a real pain in the ass with the wrong types of people. The last thing I want to do is come to work each day and not be challenged. What’s the fun in taking it easy? Let’s push it! I’m very happy that Bruno and I have been able to juggle the procedural and the serialized aspects of the show without swinging too much either way. Bruno appreciates the genesis of the Patrick Jane character, what drives him, and that he comes from a very tragic place. And you can’t fluff it off. You have to honor that. That hasn’t been easy because sometimes there’s been a lot of pressure from CBS to avoid the dark stuff, because the lighter stuff is so much easier to swallow. But without the dark, the light isn’t as enjoyable. The light can’t exist without the dark.

TV Guide Magazine: Word is, CBS has been a bit uneasy with this finale.
Baker: There have been so many little arm wrestles to get this stuff through, but in the end I think we have the confidence and the support of the studio and the network. With Bruno and me there has been a lot of, “We can do this! We can get away with this!” Because this isn’t cable where you can do what you please. In network TV, you have to present the box before you can step outside it. CBS has always wanted the fun procedural stuff, and that remains a big element of The Mentalist. But this show has a lot of different personalities. I think there’s a sense with the network that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And I understand that because you can make some really bad mistakes that way. But we have to keep this show moving. I don’t ever want to mess up the experience for the audience. I want them to enjoy the show as much as they do, from the first episode to the very last. I don’t want to screw up that relationship at all. But at the same time, living and breathing this show every day, I have to challenge Bruno and he has to challenge me. In a way it’s so much easier to be subversive in cable: “Oh, look at us! We’re wacky! We’re daring! We say ‘f—k; a lot!” When you’re on a network, you have to slide the subversive in the back door. And you don’t have to be depressing in order to have gravity. A few episodes back we had Jane help the coroner kill himself. The guy had a terminal disease and the viewers were really touched and involved in that story. But it was all so subtle, I’m not sure they really realized what Patrick had done. And now we’ve moved on to total cold-blood vengeance. [Laughs] I know how this is going to play out. Trust me, this is a great setup for next season!

Grey’s Anatomy Postmortem: What’s Next for the Seattle Grace Docs?

[Warning: This story includes major spoilers from the season finale of Grey’s Anatomy]

Oh, Meredith Grey, you have really screwed up this time.

In the season finale of Grey’s Anatomy, Meredith’s (Ellen Pompeo) decision to tamper with the Alzheimer’s clinical trial was put front and center, as her actions fractured her marriage with Derek (Patrick Dempsey). As Derek sought refuge at the unfinished McMansion, Meredith was left alone to care for newly adopted baby Zola. Fortunately, this may open the door for more dark and twisty Meredith!

“It will give her and Derek some interesting stuff to play [next season],” Sarah Drew tells TVGuide.com “They’ve been so happy for the last few seasons and there hasn’t been much drama between the two of them, and now this is a massive thing that’s come between them.”

Meredith will also have to deal with the fallout between her and Alex (Justin Chambers), who had revealed her misdeed to Owen (Kevin McKidd) in hopes it would pull her out of the running for Chief Resident. Unfortunately for Alex, he could not have foreseen that this would cause irrevocable damage to both their careers, as Owen elected April the Chief Resident in Alex’s place, and Meredith was suspended from the hospital.

“That’s going to be something the whole hospital will feel,” Drew continues. “There will be tension between the two of them, and the happy home of residents that Meredith created in her house is now kind of split and crumbling apart — and there’s going to be a baby crying in the background!”

Meredith and Derek weren’t the only couple to reach an impasse. After Cristina (Sandra Oh) discovered she was pregnant, she decided to cut Owen out of the decision making and scheduled an abortion, prompting Owen to kick her out of the house. “I think there’s going to be a lot of movement towards healing and reparation,” Drew says of next season, “People really hurting each other and trying to get past it.”

As for the new hierarchy with April in charge, it’s one thing to be Chief Resident on paper and another to put the title into action. “I think she’s going to be amazing at creating protocols that work incredibly efficiently,” Drew says. “However, part of being Chief Resident is demanding respect so that people actually do what you say and follow the protocols you set in motion. The biggest thing for her is to really gain the respect of her peers.”

Lisa Edelstein — whose long-term contract expires this month — has opted not to return for the show’s eighth and likely final season.

In a statement, the actress says, “After much consideration, I am moving onward with a combination of disappointment at leaving behind a character I have loved playing for seven years and excitement of the new opportunities in acting and producing that lie ahead.”

Fox and NBC Universal declined to comment.

Back in March — when the future of House itself was up in the air — Edelstein told TVLine, “Nobody at work seems to think it won’t [return]. Everybody wants to come to a deal, and I certainly am looking forward to a Season 8.”

In an interview last week with BlogCritics.org, exec producer Katie Jacobs said she would “not rest” until Edelstein was on board for an eighth season. “Lisa is such a valuable member [of the cast],” she said. “I challenge any other actress on TV to do what she does seemingly effortlessly. She goes between drama, comedy, intelligence, sex appeal… It’s certainly not my plan or David’s plan or the creative team’s plan to not have Lisa in the show.”

There’s talk Edelstein was a victim of belt-tightening at the show. In the aforementioned interview, Jacobs acknowledged that, “For seven seasons we managed to avoid getting the phone call to make cuts in our budget. But now we’re getting that call.” Perhaps she rejected a low-ball offer — hence her disappointment?

Earlier this month, Edelstein’s costars Robert Sean Leonard and Omar Epps inked new deals to return to the show. Hugh Laurie, Olivia Wilde and Peter Jacobson were already contracted for the recrently-greenlit Season 8, leaving Jesse Spencer as the only remaining question mark.

The news comes a week before the show’s current season — arguably Edelstein’s meatiest yet — comes to a close. It’s unclear if the finale sets the stage for a possible Cuddy departure, but that seems highly unlikely.

The Good Wife‘s Josh Charles: Will Has a “Deep Love” for Alicia

It’s been a busy — and heart-wrenching — couple of weeks on The Good Wife.

Moments after becoming Mrs. State’s Attorney, Alicia (Julianna Margulies) learned about Peter’s one-night-stand with Kalinda (err, Leila) and kicked him out. Last week, she drew enemy lines against Kalinda (Archie Panjabi) after two years of friendship. In the midst of the blow-ups, the tears and the divorce talk, has a chance for Alicia and Will (Josh Charles) to be together finally emerged?

“The nature of what’s transpired with Alicia and Peter, Alicia and Kalinda — these things push Alicia and Will closer together as friends,” Charles tells TVGuide.com. “I think — at its core — there is a deep love that Will has for her and I think he cares about her.

“Whether that means they should be together or not is sort of irrelevant to the fact that I do think that that feeling is very real and true.”

After 15 years and their infamous issue of bad timing, it looks like Alicia will at least consider reuniting with her law school love. But it won’t be so easy. Yes, they shared a passionate kiss last season and had discussions about trying to make something work. However, when Alicia challenged Will to “show me the plan,” she never received his second voicemail, and Alicia tried to make things work with Peter.

Now that her bad husband is definitely out of the apartment — and out of the picture — can Will finally show her the plan? “While some of the obstacles float away, such as her and Peter moving towards a separation, at the same time, that baggage that Alicia had expressed at the end of last season is still there. She may be right about a lot of that,” Charles says. “That doesn’t change the feelings, it just complicates them more. How that happens and how that will work out remains to be seen with what our writers want to do.”

The other big question is whether Will is really the best match for Alicia. It’s been years since they went to Georgetown together and now Alicia is a working mother of two teenagers and much, if not all, of Will’s life is devoted to his work. And then there are those references to Will’s checkered past (courtesy of Blake, natch): namely, secrets from his old law firm in Baltimore.

Although these revelations have surprised, and maybe frustrated, some fans, Charles appreciates that Will is “not just some white-knight alternative” to Peter.

“I’ll see fans and they’ll say stuff: ‘Hey, are you a good guy or a bad guy?’ ‘Hey, you’re really shady in that one,'” he says. “The reality, to me, is he’s not really interested in the morality of things as much as people want him to be. … We’re invested in him and possibly Alicia. How she feels about him affects us as an audience.”

Whether they want them or not, Charles says fans will begin to get answers about Will next season. “We’ve learned some, but we haven’t really learned a lot. We’ve been told a lot of things by a lot of different people that have a lot of different agendas,” he says. “I love where this episode leads us, leading into next year. We’ll start to learn more about Will’s backstory and when we do, I think it will be revealing and enlightening about the character.”

Charles says he’s ready for whatever direction the writers go. “Look at what they’ve just done with Alicia and Kalinda; some could say that’s a risky move but I think you take risky moves when you have strength in your own ability to sustain and create material,” he says. “These characters can sustain risky moves, risky moves that don’t feel arbitrary in my opinion. They feel right; they feel connected with what we’ve seen already.”

First, she took care of Peter (with help from some very tough packing tape). Then, on Tuesday’s episode of The Good Wife, Alicia (Julianna Margulies) dealt with the other woman, and her former best friend, Kalinda (Archie Panjabi). But will she ever be able to forgive and forget their tryst?

“The predictable thing about The Good Wife is how unpredictable The Good Wife is,” Panjabi tells TVGuide.com, “so I don’t rule anything out.”

Panjabi says “there were a few tears” on set the day she and Margulies filmed the emotional scene in which Alicia confronted her. It was a moment fans had been anticipating — and dreading — since Blake first dropped the bombshell about her and Peter weeks ago: “You slept with my husband. You do not say anything after that, you do not,” Alicia said to Kalinda before beginning to tear up. “I swear I will scream at the top of my lungs if you don’t get out of my office right now.”

Of course the biggest question is, now that she and Alicia are stuck together, how the two will function in the office. One thing’s for sure: Panjabi says Kalinda won’t continue to explain herself. She’ll take a step back while Alicia cools down. “She knows there is nothing she can say,” Panjabi says.

Although it’s unclear whether Alicia will ever really forgive her, Panjabi says she has been pleasantly surprised by the fan reaction in spite of the fallout.

“For some reason, people haven’t taken it out against Kalinda. I think they are surprised at what Kalinda’s done, but they don’t seem to be completely furious with her,” Panjabi says. “I think people are sort of let down, but they are not annoyed or angry with her. And if you think about what she’s done, she’s kind of broken up a whole family.”

On the flip side, Panjabi says Alicia and Kalinda’s separation will allow time for new friendships for both characters. And unlike her rival investigator Blake, Sophia (Kelli Giddish) will be much more of a friendly investigator who will bring out a “new side of Kalinda,” according to Panjabi.

Then there’s Cary (Matt Czuchry). He and Kalinda have always put their work before their personal lives, but Panjabi says that’s about to change. As for anything more between them? The actress isn’t saying, but let’s not forget that kiss from earlier this season.

The final installments in “The Twilight Saga” — “Breaking Dawn Part 1 & 2” — contain the franchise’s most controversial and anticipated moments to date. We’re talking sex, babies and transformations for Bella as her love affair with Edward reaches a climax. No pun intended.

Today Summit released 11 new images from the film that show Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner & co in all their golden glory. Check them out along with some choice quotes from the crew, courtesy of Entertainment Weekly!

After narrowly surviving the gunshot she suffered in the Season 3 finale, Beckett (Stana Katic) tells Castle (Nathan Fillion) that she doesn’t remember anything from the day she was shot — including the fact that Castle told Beckett he loved her. But in the premiere’s final moments, Beckett confesses to her police-mandated shrink (Michael Dorn) that she she’s been lying about her faulty memory.

But why? “She’s scared to admit that she heard him because she’s scared that the relationship is going to go to the next level and it could potentially ruin their friendship,” creator and executive producer Andrew W. Marlowe tells TVGuide.com. “She wants it but she’s not ready for it.”

However, Beckett, who is clearly still a bit shaken up from her brush with death, is able to admit that she wants to work toward a relationship with Castle — after she finally closes her mother’s murder investigation, which set this whole deadly chain of events in motion.

“Beckett is struggling with some internal things that she really needs to put to rest,” Marlowe says. “She intimates that she wants Castle, but she wants it to be a real relationship. She knows she’s not as open and available as she wants to be in life, but she knows it’s for a particular reason. So, if they can resolve Beckett’s mother’s case, that [removes] one of their biggest obstacles.”

That’s where things get really sticky. Although Castle wants nothing more than to help Beckett crack the case, he’s got one problem: A mystery man (Geoff Pierson) with knowledge of Beckett’s investigation warns Castle that if she continues digging, she will certainly end up dead.

“Castle is in this terribly conflicted position,” Marlowe says. “It ends up being a huge sacrifice for Castle to ask Beckett to back off, because he’s actually asking her to back off of the relationship.”

Adds Fillion: “If she solves the investigation, she’s saying she can be emotionally ready for a relationship with Castle. But if she delves into this investigation, she will be killed. That’s very real. If you balance that with, ‘Well, I might have a chance at dating her,’ it doesn’t really weigh out. He can’t take that chance.”

Marlowe says that Castle will continue to try to solve Beckett’s mother’s murder on his own in order to protect Beckett. Meanwhile, look for Beckett’s shrink to return at least a couple more times to offer a peek into Beckett’s head (and heart).

The bright side, Marlowe says, is that even though they’re not technically an item, their relationship is stronger than ever. “For all the people who keep saying, ‘When are they going to get in a relationship?’ they kind of already are,” he says. “It just comes with baggage and complications. [These] are two people who we deep down know love each other but there’s some significant secrets and significant obstacles that make it not the right time for them at this moment.”

And if those secrets are revealed? “[It’s] a powder keg,” Marlowe says. “Either of those things can be a real ticking bomb in their relationship. So, there’s a little bit of a delicate dance for the characters.”

Castle airs Mondays at 10/9c on ABC.

What did you think of the premiere? Are you interested in the new dynamic between Castle and Beckett?

Castle Season 4: What Happens After “I Love You”?

That’s the question looming over Castle, as the Season 4 premiere (Monday, 10/c, ABC) focuses heavily on how Detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic) will react to a profession of love from her mystery-writer/partner, Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion), in last season’s finale. Of course, Castle’s “I love you” didn’t come over a candlelight dinner, but in the aftermath of Beckett being gunned down by a sniper. So, there are plenty of easy outs, right?

“My goals were to honor everything that we had done in the season finale and not sweep anything under the carpet,” creator and executive producer Andrew W. Marlowe tells TVGuide.com. “My intent was to confront all the issues that we brought up and deal with them in a way that … was going to be both satisfying to fans and also a little bit frustrating for the ones who want Castle and Beckett to get back right away. We’ve taken their relationship to the next level of complexity. … [There’s] a lot more meaning in the Beckett and Castle relationship.”

Adds executive producer Laurie Zaks: “Once the genie is let out of the bottle, it can’t be put back in. Even if it’s not acknowledged verbally, psychologically there’s going to be a difference.”

It’s in those psychological and emotional corners of the story that things get a bit tricky. For example: Will Castle even be able to see past his own complicity in Beckett’s shooting — and by extension, the sacrificial death of former Capt. Roy Montgomery (Ruben Santiago-Hudson) — to move forward in a relationship with her?

“It was a very sobering event for Castle. Certainly he carries a measure of guilt,” Fillion says. “Here’s a guy who’s not very keen to grow up anytime soon. But he’s really been spear-heading this investigation. He’s been kicking this hornet’s nest around, thinking that solving it will get him closer to Beckett. But now he’s losing friends, literally. It’s going to force him to grow up a little.”

Also standing in the way of Castle and Beckett’s possible love connection is a decrease in face time, now that new Victoria “Iron” Gates (Penny Johnson Jerald) has assumed command of the 12th Precinct and promptly kicked Castle out.

“He’s not used to women being around him that aren’t disarmed by him immediately,” Fillion says. “Women love him, and when they don’t, he takes it really hard. … She won’t give him half a chance. Even when he deserves credit, she will not give it to him. That really bothers him, and it’s going to be a continuing battle.”

But the true obstacle preventing a Castle-Beckett hookup is secrecy, as both Beckett and Castle will be forced to hide significant information from each other at the beginning of the season.

“Everybody’s got secrets this year,” Katic says. “The first episode kind of explains how this next season will be directed. It explains in a really subtle way how the two characters feel about each other and what obstacles they might have to tackle in order to finally get to each other. I think it’s really sweet.”

Sweet, if not immediately satisfying to the show’s ravenous fans. Katic can only promise that Beckett, who will also share some her feelings with a police-mandated shrink (Star Trek: The Next Generation‘sMichael Dorn) this season, is acting in the interest of her long-term happiness.

“She’s making an adult decision not to dive into something because she doesn’t want to screw it up,” Katic says. ” She has real, adult reasons for making the choices she makes. … She cares for him so much. She’s in love with him. She’s dated other guys, but he’s the only guy she’s been in love with.”

Castle premieres Monday at 10/9c on ABC.

Exclusive Castle Postmortem: Creator on [SPOILER!]’s Death and Castle and Beckett’s Future

The action-packed final episode found Beckett (Stana Katic) once again drawn into investigating her mother’s murder after Hal Lockwood (Max Martini), the hitman who has killed all her previous leads in the case, escapes from prison. Beckett soon learns that Lockwood’s next target is none other than Captain Montgomery (Ruben Santiago-Hudson), who was the third cop involved in the kidnapping of a mob boss that ultimately led to Beckett’s mother’s murder.

Mongtomery’s betrayal and cover-up is a hard pill for Beckett to swallow, but ultimately the Captain risks his own life to take down Lockwood and protect Beckett from further harm. One problem: Montgomery dies without revealing the real mystery man who sent Lockwood to kill the conspiring cops in the first place. And that mystery man seems to have hired a new gunman, as in the closing moments of the episode, Beckett is gunned down by a sniper and left bleeding out as Castle (Nathan FIllion) professes his love to her.

If you’re anything like us, you’re still in shock. And you have plenty of questions. (Of course Beckett is going to live, silly!) Luckily, we chatted with Castle creator Andrew W. Marlowe to break it all down. Below in our exclusive interview, Marlowe reveals why the Captain had to die, what the next layer of mythology in the Johanna Beckett case involves, and just how Castle’s admission of love will play out next season.

Why did you decide to kill Captain Montgomery?Andrew W. Marlowe: It grew organically out of the series, out of who he is to Beckett and why he’s been such a mentor [to her]. We realized when we got deeper into Beckett’s mother’s murder mythology that somebody had to be protecting Beckett from herself when she was looking into this, so it made sense that the Captain was involved. It gave us this great sense of completeness and tragedy that I really responded to.

Were you worried that fans might be too jarred by the betrayal?Marlowe: We wanted them to be jarred. Beckett’s jarred. But the reality is we all have secrets and things in our lives we don’t talk about that, when they come to light, we’re forced to deal with. I think there will be some fans who will be frustrated and angry and some fans will be interested in how this will affect Beckett. What’s Beckett’s life going to be like when she doesn’t necessarily always have somebody she works for in her corner?

Captain Montgomery at least got a little bit of redemption.Marlowe: [The whole story] made the character of the Captain much more noble to me. He participated in something that was a sin in his youth, but he had done everything in his life to correct it, to overcome it. He’d done everything to serve and be a good man, but he could not outrun his sins.

So will you be adding a new boss at the precinct next season?Marlowe: That’s one of the opportunities we’re looking to take. Everybody’s getting along really well in the precinct, and we think there can be a little more conflict. We think it’s interesting to grow Beckett and Castle by having somebody who may not look as favorably on Beckett as the Captain did or may not look as favorably on the Castle-Beckett relationship. That’s all stuff we’re plotting out for next year as we speak.

The finale also reveals that there’s still a mystery man out there connected to Johanna Beckett’s murder.Marlowe: We have a great concept of how we want to follow that up in the next couple of seasons. That’s going to be vital in some decisions I’m making going into next season. We foreshadowed it a bit with Castle having to protect Beckett from herself at the end of the episode. Next season, with Castle knowing somebody is out there, [Beckett] becomes his responsibility. It changes the nature of their relationship and makes it significantly more interesting, especially given what happens the last 10 seconds of the show.

Indeed. Let’s talk about that cliff-hanger. Are you prepared for the hate mail?Marlowe: I do have an expectation that certain fans are going to be really, really frustrated. We have really tremendous, loyal fans and to make them wait all those months I think is going to be really frustrating to them. Hopefully people will be interested to see how we deal with it next year. I do think, for the relationship fans, having Castle admit his feelings to Beckett is a great moment for them.

Did Beckett hear and understand Castle say “I love you” before she went unconscious?Marlowe: I think in that moment she does. I know exactly how I’m dealing with it next season, but it would be unfair to the experience of the audience to tell them right now.

What can you say about that relationship moving forward? Marlowe: I think people will be frustrated until I do the next set of reveals at midseason. My feeling about TV audiences is that they love to be frustrated and then fulfilled. What we’re telling here is a great love story, and great love stories take a long time to resolve. Feelings ebb and flow, relationships are complicated, timing is wrong. I do know where I want to end up with these people. I know what the resolution is between them but there’s a lot of great storytelling between now and then.

Are you concerned with dragging it too long and losing viewer interest? You recently commented about Bones doing just that.Marlowe: When I express some concerns about models of the other shows, it’s when the relationship becomes stagnant. When there is no movement, there is no growth and the characters start to feel like brother and sister because they lose the spark. My goal is to not lose the spark, and I know that’s a challenge when you keep people apart for a long time. Keeping them apart can be frustrating, but I also feel like moments at the end of the swimmer episode are enormously gratifying because of everything that’s come before. The hero’s journey is about going through all sorts of difficulty to obtain your prize and having little victories along the way. My hope is that at the end of the day, it feels like a hero’s journey.

Will there at least be some payoff to Castle’s admission of love?
Marlowe: During Season 4 there will be some payoff to what he said in that moment. It’s not going to necessarily come the way the fans like. And I’m sure some of them will feel like I’ve skirted the issue initially and then come to realize that I’ve dealt with it in an interesting character way. The questions are going to be answered. I think people felt like we dropped the kiss or we dropped the freezing together, but it was always my intention to bring it up as a relationship issue [in the finale]. Hopefully people will be interested to see how we deal with it next year, and how we overcome the argument they’ve had in the middle of this episode. The issue of “Why aren’t we talking about this? Why aren’t we confronting it?”

Is Beckett’s boyfriend Josh (Victor Webster) still a possible obstacle?Marlowe: He’s still out there, and he’s somebody we’re going to have to deal with. He’s an element moving forward and it’ll be interesting to see how that functions.

What’s going to be the driving force in Season 4?Marlowe: There’s going to be a real push and pull between Beckett and Castle. Beckett’s going to want to look into [this new mystery man] and Castle’s going to have very specific reasons why he doesn’t want her to. He’ll end up with a little more information than she has, and he can’t be honest with her about it. It’s going to cause a complexity in their relationship that’s going to be interesting.

‘Castle’ creator Andrew Marlowe on finale shooting: ‘She was not wearing a vest.’

While Castle fans were weeping over Monday night’s season finale (Beckett! Nooooo!), creator Andrew Marlowe was in Hawaii, oblivious to the emotional turmoil he’d just inflicted upon us. To get back at him (kidding!), EW interrupted the executive producer’s much-deserved vacation (not kidding…) to ask some of our — and your — burning questions.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: I know you’re sitting sea side right now, but have you seen any of the Internet reaction to the finale?ANDREW MARLOWE: Yeah, I was on Twitter and a lot of the fans were nice enough to leave their thoughts with me on Twitter, so that was very exciting.

I’m not getting the sense that they’re as angry as you thought they might be.
[Laughs] Well, I didn’t know. I knew that I was going to give them something emotionally satisfying, but I also wanted them to be prepared going in that it was going to end on a cliffhanger. But I think that for the ‘shippers, there was some sense of relief that Castle got to say what he wanted to say and that in the argument they were able to put their cards on the table. Then when we get to the final scene, he’s able to admit his feelings for her. So I think there was some really good resolution in that while we had all the other stuff. I think if we didn’t have that resolution, people would have felt a little unsatisfied.

Speaking of that last scene where he says the big ‘I love you,’ Kate’s alive… right?
I think people have to tune in this fall to see.

Well, I’m at least assuming she was wearing a vest …
You don’t expect to get shot at a funeral. I’ll tell you that she was not wearing a vest. I can tell you that, yeah.

So are we going to see Beckett recovery time next season or will we have a time jump when she’s back in action?
I have not fully finished constructing the season premiere episode for [season] 4. There are a lot of moving parts that I’m going to have to deal with. There may be a time cut, but we’ll probably most likely be picking up right after the events of the shooting and dealing with the aftermath. And then a time jump somewhere in the episode.

So, why did you decided to shoot Beckett?
Well, it felt like a natural extension of the storytelling that we’re doing, and this case is the case where Beckett is most vulnerable, and Castle is at his most mature. But it also comes with a complication, and the complication is this: It’s that if Castle hadn’t urged Beckett to look into her mother’s case in episode 10′s first season, none of this would have happened. You know, Montgomery wouldn’t be dead, secrets would still be buried, Beckett’s life wouldn’t be hanging in the balance. So you know, there’s certainly going to be some guilt he’s gotta work through, and with Beckett knowing what’s at stake, this is one case where rationality flies out the window, where she basically goes and runs out into traffic. She can’t help herself. So how that’s all going to resolve next season, we have a really good and interesting angle on it. That’s something that I think fans will be really interested in when they tune in to see how we’re going to conduct things next year.

Is part of that angle dealing with the man who shot Beckett?
Yeah. In a way. But it has much more to do with the Beckett-Castle relationship.

So you said Castle is going to deal with guilt. Will part of that also come from him not being able to save her as he did in the midseason finale?
Mmhmm. Yeah, I think it’s only natural that anybody in that situation, if they aren’t able to do that, would feel that way. Absolutely.

Will this become a more personal fight for Castle now that Beckett was injured?
Well, what I’ll say about that — because I’m trying to keep some things a surprise for early next season — is that those questions are going to figure prominently in how we’re coming back and how we’re defining the next stage of their relationship.

Speaking of important stages: The “I Love you.” Is that going to be ignored next season?
No, it’s not going to be ignored. It’s going to be confronted, but it’s going to be confronted in a very Castle-ish kind of way. The show has a tendency, when it confronts things, not to go head-to-head with something. So we are going to deal with that in storytelling in a way that is really organic to this relationship and to their growth.

You really took on so many issues in this episode — which one of these steps did you consider the biggest?
For me, there were two big ones. The fight in her apartment — but the reason why that was so effective, to me, is that it’s been coming for basically two-and-a-half seasons. [They’ve had] to get to the point where they were both so emotionally raw that Castle could say, “I don’t know what the hell we are.” We’re doing this dance, and I think it’s really refreshing to have them acknowledge the dance and have the two of them interact with each other. And also him getting to the point where he didn’t want to wait ’til it was too late to say what was on his mind. [Even though] he may have been too late.

I was in love with the airport scene. How much was improv and how much of that was in the script? From him holding her against the car, to him mouthing “I’m sorry”…
I have to say that that is one of the great culminations of Will Beall’s great writing and Rob Bowman’s great directing, and two actors who are in excellent from. That was really a culmination of three tremendous elements, and everybody really had a hand in really crafting that moment.The attitude, the point of view, was all written down. The amount of emotion that Stana [Katic] poured into it and Nathan [Fillion]’s reaction to it… a lot of that happened on the day, and it was beautifully shot by the team.

I usually have some sense of composure, but I was, honestly, such a mess! It was shameful.
Good, we did our job. [Laughs]

Do you get emotional reading any of this?
My relationship to it is much different because, you know, I’m there helping to craft those moments, so I knew that we’re hitting the chord. I had that feeling. But my point of view was more how can we elicit the emotion from the scene, how can we really honor people. It was hard to be around for me emotionally when Montgomery’s character got shot. [He was] the first of the character that I created during the pilot who died. So it really did feel like to all of us that there was a significant death in the family, so we really mourned his loss. But the emotions of these moments that you guys are going through are mitigated by the fact that I know what the outcomes are. [Laughs]

Speaking of Montgomery — how long was this in the plan?
We knew for sure in January. We had been toying with the storyline. Will Beall came in with a really great angle on these mythology stories, and we all worked with him to craft this. It was coming at a point where I felt like some of the relationships needed to evolve, and we needed to challenge some of our core family. This was a really interesting way to do that, to help our relationships get to the next level. So it was a confluence of events where it just seemed to make absolute creative sense for the show. And it’s always really difficult because Ruben [Santiago-Hudson]’s been just a tremendous asset, and nothing but an enormous professional for us.

He did an outstanding job on his last scene.
He’s never been better. He is a tremendously talented actor, and he’s also a very gifted emotional actor. I think sometimes, you know, when he’s a guy who people download information into or he’s just giving the facts, it’s really not taking advantage of his enormous strengths as an emotional actor, and this was really an opportunity to have him shine, and boy, did he do a great job.

Next step would be a new boss. What kind of person are you looking for?
Well, that’s something I’m not going to think about until the end of the week. I’m going to relax for a couple of days. We are looking at bringing somebody in who’s going to present a little bit more of a challenge to our characters in the precinct. So we’re looking forward to having somebody show up who helps our characters grow and opens them up in new ways while continuing to make sure that the experience of the show, the Castle experience, remains the same for the fans.

Some readers suggested bringing on a female boss.
Yeah, I certainly would consider that. It actually would be very interesting. Not to get ahead of myself, but it’s something that has been considered, but I haven’t formally landed on anything yet. There are a lot of riches to that, but there are also some surprises in store for the fans.

‘Castle’ finale kills one, maybe two cops and exposes a dark secret

Season 3 of “Castle” promised to end with death, but we may have just gotten more than we bargained for.

The first big departure came somewhat predictably in the last act — after a game-changing revelation, naturally — but the real shocker was reserved for the final moments, when another series regular was seemingly felled.

But how did we get there? We start, as we do with most noteworthy “Castle” outings, with looming mystery of Beckett’s (Stana Katic) murdered mom. She goes to meet the mystery killer’s imprisoned associate Hal Lockwood –as she so often does — only to find that he’s been transferred to less secure facility where another accessory the conspiracy/murder, Gary McAllister, awaits his silencing execution.

Since even people in prison for murder can still be tried for another murder, Lockwood has a late-night hearing where something looks suspicious.

Now, did we accidentally stumble into a cold war thriller, or did the season finale of “Castle” actually include a helicopter breaking a gangster out of a New York City court room? It sure did. And with the closest known associate to Johanna Beckett’s murderer on the lamb, the hunt pushes Beckett back into the danger zone.

This does not sit well with Castle (Nathan Fillion). He tries to get his partner to back off, but she snaps. They fight, he even brings up the cuddles and unspoken-of kiss and then they appear to sever their partnership — but it can’t possibly last. They did that last finale.

While all of this is going down, Montgomery (Ruben Santiago-Hudson) makes all sorts of foreboding comments, fatherly references and general red flag type statements that lead to the correct conclusion that he’s going to die. What it did not prepare us for was the revelation that he’s been part of the Johanna Beckett conspiracy from the beginning.

Oh yeah. That’s right. We’ll wait for you to affix your jaw to the rest of your face.

Turns out Montgomery was an unwilling accessory to the evil-doing. He accidentally shot another cop, made the wrong friends and ended up employing the woman who’s mother he was tangentially involved in murdering. He promised the still-unnamed villain he’d keep an eye on her, in exchange for her safety.

But he’s been doing a bad job, so a freed Lockwood pays him a visit and makes the situation clear: either Beckett goes down or the entire Montgomery clan gets murdered.

He arranges to meet with Beckett — while Esposito (Jon Huertas) and Ryan (Seamus Dever) do some sleuthing of their own, turning up evidence that puts Montgomery in the middle of the crimey web. Ryan is the first to point out the damning info. Esposito gets real mad at him for questioning the chief. The world’s shortest bro fight ensues, and Esposito concedes that they need to tell Beckett.

But she’s too busy having her world turned upside down by a confession from Montgomery, who hasn’t sold her out at all. He’s drawn Lockwood to the hanger to kill him and spare Beckett and his family. Only he makes two very big mistakes in the process.

1.) He does not tell Beckett who killed her mother, saying she won’t be able to control or protect herself in possession of the information, so she can’t have it. Lame.

2.) He dies.

He did get forgiven before he went though. It’s sweet, but we bet she would have really forgiven him if he’d told her who the killer was. Beckett, Castle, Esposito and Ryan agree that the truth about Montgomery never come out. He’ll die a hero.

And at his hero’s funeral, Beckett even delivers a eulogy… for two!

We see her in the cross-hairs, just as Castle spots a laser sight, and though he dives to save her, she takes a bullet to the chest. There’s blood everywhere, and her eyes roll back into her head, leaving her presumably dead and us extremely anxious until some unknown date in September when the show returns.

Could Beckett really be dead, though? Of course not. Unless there are some plans to kill off most of the remaining cast and reboot the series as a multi-generational “Cagney and Lacey” starring Susan Sullivan and Molly Quinn, she’ll be just fine.

One Upper East Sider Is Pregnant, Plus 4 More OMG Moments From This Week’s ‘Gossip Girl!’

Blair is finally off to Monaco to marry her Prince, but an unexpected surprise could cut her fairytale short once and for all!

We’ll have to wait until next season to find out the answer to that question, but Gossip Girl‘s fourth season finale dropped enough surprises to keep us busy chatting about until then.

Last week’s episode ended with Mr. Thorpe kidnapping Blair (Leighton Meester) as an act of revenge against Chuck (Ed Westwick). Blair called Chuck for help, but only because she still had him on speed dial on her phone. He ran to her rescue, then asked her to accompany him for just one drink in return. But that one drink turned into a night of the two crashing a wedding reception and having sex in an empty room of the party. And this was all while Prince Louis of Monaco was waiting for Blair at their engagement party!

She was about to break it off with Prince Louis, until Chuck intervened and gave Prince Louis his blessing and left. Blair ran after him to ask why he did that, especially after they spent that amazing night together. Chuck said he will always love her, but Prince Louis will treat her better than he ever will. They both decided they needed to let go of each other once and for all. Now, Blair is still engaged to her Prince and planning her Royal Wedding for next November. But something tells me she’ll have another surprise to deal with before they say their “I do”s.

More ‘OMG’ Moments:

1. Is Blair pregnant?

The big cliffhanger was a discarded (positive) pregnancy test in the garbage can at Blair and Serena’s (Blake Lively) apartment. Serena hasn’t had a fling since who-knows-when, so I’m thinking it must be Blair’s. And it has been three weeks since her one night stand with Chuck. Could their night of making up and breaking up — have knocked her up?

2. Serena gets a job on the west coast!

Serena traveled across the country to live with her grandma and spend time working on herself for the summer. But will it lead to a more permanent situation for next season? She was offered a job by a major Hollywood hotshot — and it looks like she accepted it!

3. Charlie is revealed to be a fake!

This was by far the most shocking moment of the season finale — aside from the potential pregnancy. Serena’s crazy cousin Charlie (Kaylee Defer) ended up being a total fake, and it was all a plan for Lily’s (Kelly Rutherford) sister to get her blank checks. Georgina (Michelle Tratchenberg) befriended Charlie, or whatever her real name is, after she tried killing herself by jumping out the window. Even though this was all staged, I think Charlie is going to go back to the Upper East Side next season, because she was looking at Georgina’s number after Lily’s sister paid her for the job.

4. Raina is heading back to Chicago.

After finding out her father killed her mother — and almost Blair — Raina (Tika Sumpter) is going back home to Chicago. This means her serious relationship with Nate (Chace Crawford) has come to an end. Of course, Nate will be traveling as a bachelor with Chuck for the summer, and he doesn’t seem too bummed about that.

What did you think of the Gossip Girl season finale, HollywoodLifers? Will there be a love child between Chuck and Blair next season? Is Serena going to permanently reside on the West Coast? Were you as surprised by the Charlie scandal as I was?

Taylor Momsen and Jessica Szhor Exit ‘Gossip Girl’

“Gossip Girl” is going through a major cast change with the elimination of Taylor Momsen and Jessica Szohr. The actresses, who portray Jenny Humphrey and Vanessa Abrams respectively, have been downgraded from regulars to recurring. They would appear in the upcoming season on a guest star basis.

Momsen’s departure is inevitable for she is shifting her focus to singing for The Pretty Reckless. She was only in four episodes through the first half of season four before taking an indefinite hiatus. It’s still unclear how they would explain Jenny’s absence. As for Vanessa’s, the character recently said she wanted to study abroad.

They kissed. They held each other tightly as they nearly died together in a freezer. They shared a giant Los Angeles hotel suite that, despite its roominess, couldn’t contain the sexual tension. And in Monday’s finale (10/9c, ABC) all of those issues will be addressed.

“Both characters lay their cards on their table,” creator and executive producer Andrew W. Marlowe tells TVGuide.com. “[They] come to an understanding about the issues that they’re dealing with and the ways in which each of them were approaching the relationship. There’s a knockdown, drag-out fight where Castle’s like, ‘Look, what do we mean to each other?'”

Unfortunately, this meeting of the minds comes just as Beckett once again goes down the rabbit hole chasing her mother’s killer. When sniper Hal Lockwood (Max Martini) — who killed Beckett’s last solid lead earlier this season — escapes from prison, the case is re-opened. And some of the new information hits far too close to home.

“This is Beckett as her rawest,” Marlowe says. “Not everything that she thought was true is actually true. She has to confront some very serious issues in her own life and in her relationships when the truth comes out. She doesn’t really like what she finds, but she’s going to keep going, even though it puts her in danger.”

And that danger isn’t just limited to Beckett. Marlowe confirms that before the season ends, one major character will be in a body bag, and he says the early Season 4 renewal made it possible to take such risks in the storytelling.

“Knowing that we’re not in a position where we have to resolve everything and that we can push ourselves into deeper mystery and more complicated relationships allowed us to embrace this kind of story,” Marlowe says. “It was something we started looking at early in the season, and then after we were renewed, I felt very comfortable moving forward with it.

“It’s always uncomfortable for any show creator to have to end a relationship with somebody they’ve created along the way,” Marlowe continues. “But sometimes to challenge your characters for the continuation of the show, it’s an important thing to do.”

While we’re fairly certain the show wouldn’t kill its female lead, Marlowe insists that Beckett’s recklessness is a major concern. “Everybody knows that in pursuing this case, she’s basically running in the way of the bad guys and it’s going to get her killed,” Marlowe says. “So everybody that cares about her is just trying to protect her. At the end of the day she cares too much about this case to be protected. [She’s] pretty much pushing everybody away.”

Castle‘s Season 3 finale airs Monday at 10/9c on ABC.

Exclusive: Marvel and ABC Team for Castle-Inspired Graphic Novel

Marvel Entertainment and ABC Studios have teamed up to create a hardcover graphic novel inspired by the ABC’s Castle, TVGuide.com has learned. Titled Richard Castle’s Deadly Storm, it’s the first partnership between Marvel and ABC since Disney, which owns ABC, acquired Marvel last year.

The book focuses on Derrick Storm, the protagonist of Richard Castle’s most popular series of novels. Viewers may recall that Castle (Nathan Fillion) began following Beckett (Stana Katic) for inspiration for a new series of books after he made the decision to kill off Derrick Storm, with whom he’d become bored.

“We are incredibly excited to be partnering with Marvel to bring Richard Castle’s early literary works to life,” Castle creator and executive producer Andrew W. Marlowe said. “It’s a great way to expand the Castle universe for all our fans.”

The 112-page graphic novel will be written by Brian Michael Bendis (Avengers, Ultimate Comics Spider-Man) and Kelly Sue DeConnick (Captain America and The Secret Avengers). Lan Medina (Fables) will handle the interior art; Carlo Pagulayan (Planet Hulk) created the cover art, which can be seen below as well as in Monday’s Season 3 finale of Castle (10/9c, ABC).

This is the latest branding experiment ABC has tried with Castle. The network has already teamed with Hyperion Books to publish two novels — Heat Wave and Naked Heat — that parallel Castle’s work with Beckett, the inspiration for the author’s heroine Nikki Heat. A third book, Heat Rises,is due in the fall. ABC also launched RichardCastle.Net in April.

Richard Castle’s Deadly Storm will be available in stores in September 2011.

Vampire Diaries Episode: “As I Lay Dying”

Season 2, Episode 22: Episode Synopsis: The second season concludes with lives hanging in the balance as the consequences of the sacrifice ritual become clear. Meanwhile, Damon recalls memories of Katherine in 1864 during a town-square viewing of “Gone With the Wind.” Original Air Date: May 12, 2011

Can you believe it’s already the season finale of The Vampire Diaries? While last week’s episode proved to be pretty epic and extremely tragic, it was hard to imagine the finale would top it. But it did.

Damon tries to apologize (rather sincerely I might add) to Elena for making her feed on his blood and says, “I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I need it.” Elena tells him she needs time. So, off Damon goes. He takes a drink and then stands in the sun with his ring off and burns. Stefan shows up to rescue Damon and tells him he cannot kill himself. “What’s the plan, Superman?” Damon jokes. Even while dying he’s funny!

Klaus wakes up and Elijah is there with him. It’s been two days, Elijah says, since Klaus went on a rampage, and during that time he learned he can change at will from a wolf to vamp. Elijah asks where the bodies of their family are, but now that Klaus is super-hybrid powerful, getting that answer won’t be so easy.

Stefan fills Elena in on Damon’s wolf bite and says that because he made Damon turn in the first place, he owes it to him to find a cure. So Stefan goes to find Klaus, because Bonnie learned from channeling her witches that he’s the only key to a cure. Figures. Stefan first goes to Katherine’s, but soon after, Klaus and Elijah walk in. Just as Stefan pleads for their help, Klaus turns around and stabs his brother. So Elijah dies yet again, but this time I’m pretty sure it’s for real. Oh, Daniel Gillies, how you wouldn’t even hint that to me. Klaus reminds Stefan about the guy he used to be and although Stefan says he hasn’t been like that in a long time, Klaus says that’s the kind of vampire he wants to work with. Then, Klaus bites Katherine from his werewolf side, but then feeds her blood which makes it go away. The cure is Klaus’ blood. Of course it is.

The most annoyingly frustrating character of the night goes to Sheriff Forbes who first takes Elena hostage, and then tries to go after Damon. She finds Damon in the Grill with Jeremy and goes to shoot him, but Damon quickly moves leaving Jeremy with the wound. Caroline and Bonnie soon show up and Caroline tries to feed him her blood to save him as her mother watches in shock and despair over what she’s just done. Bonnie takes Jeremy away into her witch lair and attempts a spell to save Jeremy. She soon learns the witches are angry with her, but Bonnie pleads for her ancestor Emily to help. As the lights flicker out and Bonnie begins to bleed, Jeremy’s eyes open to reveal the power worked.

Back at Klaus’ place, he bottles up his blood for Stefan to prove that he might think of giving it to him if Stefan does as he’s asked. Klaus tosses him a bag of blood and makes him start drinking. After consuming bags of blood, Klaus says he wants them to leave town together and Stefan then essentially makes a deal with the devil. Klaus tosses his bottled blood to Katherine and tells her she can bring it to Damon.

As Damon is on his deathbed, Elena is by his side, even though he had just bitten her, mistaking her for Katherine. “All those years I blamed Stefan, no one forced me to love her. It was my own choice… Tell Stefan I’m sorry,” Damon says to Elena. He also tells her that he deserves to die but that he’s OK with everything because if he had chosen a different path he never would’ve met her. Elena forgives him and Damon finally says I love you, without compelling her to forget. “You should’ve met me in 1864; you would’ve liked me,” he says struggling for every breath. “I like you now… just the way you are,” she says. And then the moment many of us have been waiting for, Elena gives him a kiss. Not a passionate, “take me now” kiss, but one that shows she really does care for him. Too bad Katherine arrives and ruins the moment. But the good news is she has the blood. She hands it over and tells them that Stefan has sacrificed everything.”Good thing you have Damon to keep you company,” she says before adding, “It’s OK to love them both; I did.”

Klaus has his minions put Elijah in a casket and then tells Stefan he has a gift for him. He brings out a girl and we all know what’s about to go down. “I want to make sure you’ll honor our deal,” Klaus says as he bites her and then tells Stefan to do the same. And he does. Stefan bites into the innocent girl, kills her, and as he looks up it’s almost as if he has the slightest smirk remembering how good the human blood tastes. “Now we can go,” Klaus says.

In the final scene, Jeremy wakes up and gets out of bed upon hearing noises. As he walks down the stairs, Vicki (who died in Season 1) is following him, and then Anna (who also died) shows up. Jeremy sees the dead vampires and calls out their names. Is he dead? Is he a vampire? Is he a witch? Is he dreaming? What is he?

With three and a half days to digest everything that transpired in the “Vampire Diaries” finale, I finally feel like I have a grasp on where the very solid season ender leaves us and the characters.

Damon is healthy, but in a precarious place now that he’s left to defend The Salvatore name — and lady love — after Stefan departed with Klaus, who is keeping his extended family in cold storage … for now. Meanwhile Jeremy is being haunted (?) by his dead ex-girlfriends after Bonnie brought him back from the dead after Caroline’s mom accidentally shot him, who has in turned accepted her daughter’s newly undead status.

Ya know, just another day in Mystic Falls. So with adequate time spent looking in the rearview, I wanted to turn our attention to season three — and this interview with creator Kevin Williamson, that previews what you can expect from “Vampire Diaries” this September!

PopWrap: How do you feel about the season finale?
Kevin Williamson: I was excited that we got to bring a few of the storylines to a close, so not everything was left as a cliffhanger, while also introducing some new threads for next year. Next season there are several places we can pick up, we don’t have to start right where we left off this time.

PW: Do you like that fans are still scratching their heads over the Vicki-Jeremy-Anna cliffhanger?
Kevin: [laughs] Oh, yes. I’m very excited about that storyline in particular. Right now I hope fans see it as a big question mark, because it should be.

PW: Where did that idea come from?
Kevin: Kayla Ewell. I just loved her. When we made the decision to kill Vicki, it wasn’t an easy one, but something I felt was important to the show because it needed to have a different kind of life. A moment to make people sit back and say, “this show is serious about genre storytelling.” And it worked. But I missed her. Right away I thought, “she can come back.” But then I thought, “dead people have to stay dead or we’re ‘Heroes.'” There here have to be consequences. Especially when people die. In that moment I came up with Jeremy being haunted by Vicky, but that felt stupid. But when Anna came around, everyone fell in love with her too – I mean, the Twitter outrage when she died alone proved that. Then we started playing off the idea that everyone in Jeremy’s life was dying, so I thought, “now there’s a story here!” I was waiting for the right time. It had to be earned. We’ve done werewolves, vampires, we’ve tried to keep it really grounded and now we’re in a place after all the witchy-woo-woo of this year that I think the audience will accept this additional element to our world. So now we’re going to do this whole haunting of Jeremy.

PW: Haunting implies “ghosts” — is that what you consider Vicki & Anna?
Kevin: No. But if you are thinking ghosts, that is the appropriate place to start.

PW: Does it open the door for more people to return, like Jenna?
Kevin: I guess, but we’re not planning anything like that. There still needs to be a consequence to death, even in this storyline we’ve created with Jeremy. It will abide by a set of rules.

PW: Can I ask, how did you keep it secret?
Kevin: For the longest time, only Julie and I knew. Even when we wrote the final script we kept that scene out. We finally engaged Malese [Jow] & Kayla, who were both excited and on board for it – but the thing is, we had to make sure they were not only available for the finale, but also season three to play out the storyline. But we told them, if people see you in Atlanta, here are your excuses.

PW: Which were?
Kevin: For Kayla it was, “I’ve come to visit my best friend Nina.” For Malese, we told her to say that Anna was involved in a flashback. But it never came out, which was nice because we’re a show that relies on those twists and turns to be most effective. I like that the press had embraced that and played ball.

PW: Julie Plec previously called next year, the “Season of the Originals” — talk to me a bit about where that’s going to take us.
Kevin: It was time for a new element. I mean, talk about a spin-off series [laughs]. Elijah explained how Klaus came about being a few episodes back. So we’re going to build from that mythology, but as you saw from the coffins, there are a lot of originals there. And we have a huge twist already planned for the first episode with them that explains why Klaus was so interested in Stefan. There’s another element to Klaus and what he’s about that you don’t know yet.

PW: Suffice it to say, those coffins won’t stay closed for long.
Kevin: It’s one of the big things that’s going to happen next year – this family of originals. We’re going to find out who they are, what they’re about, how The Salvatore’s are intertwined with them – Klaus took Stefan for a reason. There’s a big story here. There’s a whole third season of plot we get to mine through these fascinating characters. They’ll show up and hopefully be just as delicious as Klaus & Elijah turned out to be.

PW: Plus, I’m guessing you’ll get to bring in that female element I know you love so much.
Kevin: Right? Mama Original! I can’t wait till the sister and the mother crawl out of their coffins. Well, whoever … we haven’t exactly figured it out yet. But what The Originals have done for us is make us excited again about a whole new chapter in this story. We got all jazzed about this third season – if we can pull it off [laughs].

PW: The finale also leaves us in an intriguing place for the Stefan-Elena-Damon relationship. What excites you about where that goes in season three?
Kevin: We’re in an interesting place now with Stefan and Klaus – and Damon is in a place where he never wanted to be. If he didn’t like playing hero this year, what’s going to happen when he’s forced to do the right thing and save his brother? [laughs] It’s going to be an interesting journey. It’ll be exactly what we set out for, but of course we’ll twist it and turn it. That’s the goal. I’m excited to see the dynamic shift with those three. For Elena, after two seasons of loving her as a strong female figure, I think the audience will now finally hopefully be receptive seeing her buy into what Katherine said, that it’s ok for Elena to love both Stefan and Damon.

PW: Looking back, what do you feel were the most creatively satisfying elements of season two?
Kevin: Katherine. That is a highlight for me. Watching this character, who we truly planned to never see that much, become so alive and delicious thanks to Nina, suddenly it made us reroute the entire season. Also watching all the supporting characters, who I knew were capable of so much more in the first season, get to shine this year was amazing. Especially Caroline. Turning her into a vampire … I knew Candice had it in her.

PW: That torture scene still gets me.
Kevin: [laughs] It’s very rare that you find an actor who can make you laugh and cry in the same line of dialogue. Candice can do it and when you can do that, you’re gold to me because that’s who I want to write for. People who make me excited to see how they’ll perform the words.

PW: Regrets?
Kevin: I feel like there was too much witchy woo-woo. We put the master witch at the center of this entire curse, so as a result of doing that, I felt like some of the episodes became too much about witchcraft and not enough about vampires. But that was me taking the story there. The writer in me wishes I had dialed back on that a bit.

PW: So … less witches in season three?
Kevin: Oh, no. Don’t get me wrong, I love the witches – and there’s another whole show I’m involved in about witches. I’m glad we told Bonnie’s story – she is another one who I’m so proud of this season.

PW: That was my next question, do you feel like season two became so witch-centric because they were on your brain given “Secret Circle?
Kevin: No. I came on board with “Secret Circle” towards the end, so it was after both storylines had been developed. I think with witches, you’re always in danger of, “if one spell can do this, another bigger one can do this!” You have to limit their powers, the rules have to be very clear with witchcraft or a spell can undo anything. You have to be careful you don’t get sloppy with it. I don’t want to use a spell to write myself out of a corner, the show always strives to make it be real and hard and difficult and clever. As opposed to convenient.

PW: I know you haven’t heard yet, but what are you excited about with “Secret Circle?”
Kevin: [gasps] Brittany and Thomas Dekker are so good! I was shocked because he wasn’t interested in doing a TV show, much less a CW show. He’s an indie, quirky film guy – but Thomas is really, really good on this show. We were on-set saying that he turned out even better than we thought. He and Brittany together have incredible chemistry. It’s fun.

PW: Obviously you’ll hear this week — are you feeling optimistic?
Kevin: I am. I was just reading that “The Ringer” was picked up by The CW … which is funny because when Julie and I were trying to get Sarah Michelle Gellar to play Rose.

PW: Really?
Kevin: Oh yea. Originally me and my pipe dreams – the ones that led me to tell you I wanted Taylor Swift for Lexi – had us trying to get Sarah Michelle Gellar for Rose. She was very appreciative but just said no. She was the only stunt casting we’d have ever agreed to [laughs].

Vampire Diaries Boss: A Lot of Our Characters Are at Extreme Risk in the Finale

While last week’s episode of The Vampire Diaries was action-packed, and full of death and rings of fire, Thursday’s season finale will have a different tone. “There’s a lot of emotional resolution,” executive producer Julie Plec says. But don’t think that means anyone is safe. “A lot of our characters, in some way or another, are at extreme risk,” Plec says. “There are some moves and surprises that will make the audience yell at us.”

In Part 2 of our chat with Plec, she discusses plans to dig deeper into the backstory of the originals and why “Delena” fans will love the second half of the Season 2 finale.

You recently said that Season 3 would be about the originals. Was that always the plan?

Julie Plec: We always knew in a perfect world our Klaus casting [Joseph Morgan] would be successful. He’s a very small villain in the book series, but his actions have huge, huge repercussions on the community. We knew there was a lot of territory to mine there, so we built him in and introduced him at the end of this season in hopes that the audience would connect to the character as a villain and we could then explore a lot more down the road about who he is and where he came from. The addition of Elijah [Daniel Gillies] in our world midseason just changed everything. You have Joseph Morgan and Daniel Gillies, two extraordinary actors having these amazing scenes with each other and you just want more of them. We haven’t started plotting Season 3 yet — that happens soon — but certainly it’s in our intention to dig deeply into the backstory of the original family.

Are you going to shy away from present day and go more towards mythology and flashbacks?

Plec: The show is always going to be about Mystic Falls, our heroes, our love stories, and our brothers and Elena as they navigate the real world in a very unreal scenario. The flashbacks are dropped in here and there, so I don’t know that we’ll shift that too extremely in one direction or another. It’s worked well for us, and every now and then we get to go back into the past and really see these people, who they were back then, but I don’t think we’ll suddenly have every episode be in year [1000].

OK, let’s talk finale. Will it be as emotional as last week’s episode?

Plec: There’s absolutely going to be a different sense of tone — it’s not big rings of fire, flaming fire balls and hearts being ripped out. It’s the continuation of Damon and Stefan’s relationship as brothers, Damon’s imminent death as a result of the werewolf bite, and Damon’s continuing desire to get acceptance and forgiveness from Elena.

Damon can’t possibly die, right?

Plec: A lot of our characters, in some way or another, are at extreme risk — Damon of course being the obvious. I, of course, won’t tell you if anybody makes it to see Season 3 or not, but there are some moves and surprises that will make the audience yell at us.

What will Stefan do to try to save Damon?

Plec: Stefan ended the previous episode saying, “I am not going to let you die. I will find a cure.” And, of course, there is no cure. So that’s going to be complicated for Stefan, who feels very responsible for his brother as a result of having been the one who really pushed being a vampire on him in the first place. He also feels responsible for the fact that Damon now believes his wrongs led to his death — that it’s karmic retribution — and Stefan is basically saying, “I don’t accept that because if I accept that this is your karmic retribution, then this is my fault to begin with.” So Stefan sets out on a pretty intense journey to figure out if there’s any way to save his brother and … it’s a really harrowing experience for him. His own life is put in peril as a result of wanting to do anything he can to save Damon.

Plec: Elena, who is unaware of Damon’s bite, is trying to move forward with her brother and her friends. There’s a speech early on where she says, “We’ve got to get up, we’ve got to get out of the house, we’ve got to breathe, eat, sleep, then do it all over again until it gets better.” That’s shifted when she learns the truth about Damon and sets out to help him as he goes through his spiral. A lot of their relationship and friendship issues are brought to light as he is on his deathbed and is still very much desperate for absolution.

Sounds like “Delena” fans will enjoy the finale then.

Plec: The second half of the episode is very much driven by Damon and Elena — as he’s falling apart — and what she does to try to bring him peace. This is very much an episode of Damon and Elena, and all their relationship issues that they’ve struggled with for two years now coming to a head.

Can we expect a major cliff-hanger?

Plec: Put it this way, there is an out-of-left-field surprise at the end of this episode that tells the audience very clearly what road we’re traveling down Season 3. It’s not a big cliff-hanger episode. There’s a lot of emotional resolution, and then there’s a humdinger or two at the end that basically says: “You thought you knew what this show was. Well, we’re just getting started.”